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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26076640">Swan Song</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric'>hopeless_eccentric</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>(Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Ballet, Ballet Dancer Benzaiten Steel, Gen, Mentioned Sarah Steel, Pre-Canon, after Juno moves out, dance teacher ben but he does a little kid's class, essentially the last time he ever seens benten alive, juno comes to watch him practice, kind of a character study?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:32:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,018</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26076640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Benzaiten's face fell into a beautiful mask of faux tragedy, the lines of his arms as soft and flowing as they were taut with muscle. Even the flick of his soon to be cold hand sent a ripple through his forearm like a stone cast into water. </p><p>AKA Juno comes to watch Ben practice his solo. Neither of them know it's the last time he'll ever perform it</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Benzaiten Steel &amp; Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>(Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Swan Song</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Commission for the anon who messaged me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric !</p><p>Imagine whatever variation you want for the mentioned solo, though I would recommend listening to The Swan (Saint-Saens) during that portion of the text. None of the sad stuff actively happens during the text, but is all mentioned as happening in the future.</p><p>Content warnings for grief/mourning, death, implied abuse, mentions of minor injury, blood mention</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Benten always had the nerve to look nice while he worked out. Even after hours in the dance studio, he looked little worse than when he came in.</p><p>The most exerted he might look at any point in rehearsal was immediately after a number, chest heaving and face flushed and eyes bright and burning. That wasn’t to say he looked bad, however. He just wore life more boldly than usual. </p><p>Juno wasn’t particularly jealous. He supposed red shorts he’d had since high school and an orange t-shirt he’d had since seventh grade carried their own kind of charm, whether they be rumpled in a gym bag or soaked and clinging to him like a desperate ex. Besides, Benzaiten’s poise came in part from a level of athleticism Juno would die before committing to. </p><p>Even if Ben’s cheekbones wore sweat the way a trophy wife wore a mink coat, the consequences of his hours in the studio bore deeper into his skin. His legs dappled with bruises just from the process of rolling out knots, while his bloodstained shoes looked like they might snarl at Juno whenever he walked by. </p><p>It wasn’t Juno’s place to judge though. Dancing made Benten happy, and though he would bitch and moan about his every knot and blister and long lost toenail, Juno knew it was superficial.</p><p>Juno didn’t expect that moving out would be so difficult. He spent most of his time away from home anyway. However, after too many nights of waking up in a room with a single bed and making coffee for one, he decided to meet his conundrum in the middle. </p><p>It took less than a minute to make the call. He asked if some time, he could come see Ben get all those knots he bitched about. Ben laughed, then gave him a time and date. They didn’t talk about the yelling match when Juno left, or that the last time they spoke, Juno was half-drunk and sobbing into his comms while they both apologized for saying things they never meant. </p><p>When his pulse settled back to something he could almost call regular, Juno heard himself let out a sigh. Without another thought, he left to see his brother alive for the last time. </p><p>Juno knew the directions by heart, even from the new apartment. He knew the words on the sign of the chicken sandwich shop next door by heart and found himself surprised when he saw an eviction notice for the loan sharks on the other side of that. </p><p>The dance studio was a little cinder block building. When they were younger, Benzaiten would always joke that it looked like a bomb shelter, while Juno said it looked like a jail. That was the closest thing kids in Old Town got to staring at clouds and arguing over their shape. </p><p>With a few months of HCPD Academy training under his belt, however, Juno let out a dry chuckle when he pulled into the near-empty parking lot. Even with the dusky sky behind and the lights beneath the awning flickering out, he could tell without a doubt that the studio looked like a jail. </p><p>Well, mostly like a jail. </p><p>Most jails didn’t have posters offering tango lessons and fliers for upcoming performances taped on their eye-like windows. If that were the case, Ben would probably be the Steel twin in law enforcement. Jails also didn’t have a warm glow that came from within. It was the kind of color that seemed like an old sodium light from afar, but felt more and more like coming home the closer you got. Juno could see why Benten wanted to spend that much time in a place like this. </p><p>Jails also didn’t tend to have a herd of eight year olds, most clad in twice-owned shoes, coming out of the front door. A few were picked up by parents. Most waved farewell to their teacher and stuffed their hands in their pockets and sighed, a very old look crossing their very young faces as they began to walk back home. </p><p>Benzaiten stood watch in the doorway as they all went. Even though he smiled and returned the waves of his pupils, Juno could tell that his grip was tight on the doorway and his eyes had drawn sharp like an owl watching over a garden. While his lean might have suggested he was stretching, his jaw had set in such a manner that for once, when looking at the face of his brother, Juno saw himself. </p><p>When the last of Benten’s pupils turned around the corner, he relaxed. The casual rippling of the muscles in his arm eased from a cliff side into a river, and he finally looked up across the lot and waved. </p><p>“Hey, Super Steel!” </p><p>“I leave for a week, and you’ve already adopted half an elementary school,” Juno snorted, kicking the door of his car open and stepping out into the dying evening light. </p><p>Two weeks later, he would earn a dent on that rear bumper when someone in Benzaiten’s funeral procession tailgated a little too close. Maybe Juno just accidentally slowed down, eyes lost on a blank part of the road while his foot eased off the gas.</p><p>He never got around to getting it fixed. </p><p>In kinder times, when the bumper was as good as new and Benten’s face beamed as bright as the glow from within the building, however, Juno held the door open while his brother walked inside. </p><p>“So, are all your friends pint sized now, or—“ </p><p>Ben cut him off with the kind of glare that could barely restrain a smile. </p><p>“They do teach you what kids are in the academy, right?” </p><p>“Shut up,” Juno snorted. </p><p>“Let me guess: you’re practicing for your Cop One Liners 101 class,” Benten laughed. Juno tried to glare, but for once, found he couldn’t seem to conjure one. </p><p>It had barely been a week since he left home. While the place was a black mass that grew on the inside of his skull like a toxic fungus, Juno had spent so much time desperate to think about anything else that he had nearly forgotten how much he appreciated the good parts. </p><p>“Geez, looks like somebody’s failing Cop One Liners 101,” Ben whistled. </p><p>“So, do you have this whole place to yourself, or what?” Juno deflected. Benten looked like he was considering another Cop One Liners 101 joke, but he cast off the thought with a visible shake of his head. </p><p>“Yeah. The owners have me do the free kid’s class, so I get a key. That also means I’ve got free reign to stay late and practice.” </p><p>“Hell of a kingdom you’ve got, Benten,” Juno snorted. </p><p>The room was fairly bare, kept alight by both the flickering lights overhead and their reflection in the gaping wall of mirrors. Everything had its double, from the sprung, marley-topped floor, to the pair of twins staring back at their own reflections. For once, there were four Steel brothers. </p><p>When Juno returned two weeks later to collect Ben’s personal items from his locker, there hadn’t been two Steel brothers in days. While a half-sobbing owner of the studio handed him a purple duffel bag, Juno was unable to tear his gaze from that second self in the mirror, looking for Benten somewhere in his face. He couldn’t find him anywhere, and when time stretched to an extent that he had no more excuse to stand there and look, he left and took his memory of the four brothers Steel with him. </p><p>That night, however, his glance at their reflections was met with a hearty laugh. </p><p>“Everyone does it,” Benten chuckled.</p><p>“Does what?” </p><p>“You’re talking to our reflections, not me,” Ben clarified. </p><p>“I’ll take it up with my therapist,” Juno returned with a roll of his eyes, turning his body so he was forced instead to look at his brother as he put on his shoes. </p><p>“Everybody does it. I had to break the habit with the kids. Eye contact’s good for most of them, you know?” Benten shrugged. When Juno merely nodded, letting the buzzing evening silence stretch between them, he made a face. </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“Don’t just sit there and watch me.”</p><p>Juno groaned. </p><p>“Why do you even have to change your shoes in the first place? You’re already wearing a pair,” he pointed out. </p><p>“They’re almost broken in. I want them perfect for the show, so I’ve gotta start wearing them now,” Ben explained. </p><p>“So, I’m guessing you already did that thing where you slam them on the ground at home?” </p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“Bet mom’s pissed,” Juno snorted. </p><p>“She’s always pissed.”</p><p>The eggshell walls and stormy gray floor caused enough vertigo in the mirrored room by themselves. When Sarah Steel was mentioned, however, the lights seemed to go a little colder and the mirrors ached in response. It was as if an unspoken rule had been broken, the front gate of a castle held open to let in a dangerous stranger and the chilling wind they brought with them. </p><p>Juno didn’t say anything else until Ben’s shoes were on and the music was flowing from his comms. </p><p>“So, this is your big solo?” Juno asked. </p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“And it’s from some old ballet or something?”</p><p>“Yep,” Ben returned. He jogged back over to his comms to rewind the song. </p><p>“And I should shut up now?”</p><p>“You’re gonna make one hell of a detective,” Benten chuckled. He glanced over to catch the reflection of Juno’s scowl in the mirror, but before he could acknowledge it, the music required him to begin the number. </p><p>His face fell into a beautiful mask of faux tragedy, the lines of his arms as soft and flowing as they were taut with muscle. Even the flick of his soon to be cold hand sent a ripple through his forearm like a stone cast into water. </p><p>Juno watched the Steel twins, his brother and the mirrored imitation, in their dance, and he couldn’t help his memory flickering to a debate he and Benzaiten once had. Juno suggested such an activity to be a sport, while Ben held fast that it was more complicated than that. </p><p>Juno had argued that such aches and pains as Benten’s could only be caused by a sport, while Ben maintained that there was a level of artistry to it as well. He was too stubborn to admit Ben was definitely right. </p><p>Even in an old shirt that Juno could’ve sworn was his, Ben was a vision. His practiced expression of grace kept his mouth slightly ajar while his arms traced through the air like he was moving water. He spun as though the planet below was created just so he might swirl atop that single point. </p><p>All the while, a lone cello mourned from the speaker on his comms. Two weeks later, the song would be played at his funeral. Benzaiten would not dance, and neither would the ghostly double in the world on the other side of the mirror. When he watched his brother’s solo, Juno thought that when it was done in front of an audience, someone might cry. He hadn’t expected it to be him. </p><p>Three rehearsals later, the free dance classes taught by Mister Steel would be cancelled while the studio owners scrambled to find replacements for the empty spots left in lines and formations. They played a video of the solo when no student felt it right to take his place. </p><p>Juno tried to come to his brother’s last performance, but couldn’t make it through enough of the show to see the number. He left for a bar at intermission. </p><p>For the time being, however, Benten danced. His chest heaved and a smile broke through his veneer of poise when he did something he had drilled for hours just right. If Juno looked closely, he could see Ben’s raised pulse beating against his sweat-slick breast, though his exertion did not show.</p><p>And with his muscles straining and one ankle clicking and the flush of exercise high in his cheeks, Benzaiten Steel was the picture of life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Fun fact: as an actual dancer, every pain/minor injury that Ben goes through is something I am Currently Going Through. Rest in pieces, toenails. you were nice while you lasted. Also Why Are My Joints Making The Noise That They Is</p><p>Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll irish dance on your roof at 3am</p><p>Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric! I'm currently taking free commissions for fics!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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